First, D V, I must say that

Michael Moriarity

rabble-rouser

Member: 2128

Joined: Jul 27 2001

February 18, 2010 - 11:10pm

First, D V, I must say that I find your writing very difficult to understand. That may simply be because I am an old fart. But to my mind, you seem to be willing to abandon clarity to save a few dozen keystrokes. I can see that when you type "sec-hums" you mean secular humanists, and "rel-trad" is probably supposed to mean religious traditionalist. But I have no idea what you mean by "modsec" or "libeff". Having said that, I will try to respond to what I imagine is the substance of your posting.

D V wrote:

"so much more malleable"

M.M., why the "so much"? and why "more"? i have had interchanges with sec-hums who have proved hopelessly naive and unaware of their own assumptions, kind of what i've berated hs' & others about re modsec generally, about their lack of awareness of its functioning often as religious surrogate, with sometimes even worse and more dangerous failings

I am going to assume that you have read Bob Altmeyer's book, as I suggested. When I assert as facts conclusions which are justified in that book by scientific evidence, I will not feel compelled to restate the evidence that Altmeyer has accumulated.

Being "hopelessly naive and unaware of their own assumptions" is a venial sin in my view. A secular humanist with these faults, who has a low RWA score, will be able to respond appropriately, and learn something when his naivete and assumptions are pointed out to him. On the other hand, a high RWA religionist will resist to the death all attempts to point out his errors. He will prefer the "truth" told to him by his authority figure to the evidence of his own senses. He will in fact be happy to physically harm someone who is targeted by his leaders as "evil". I challenge you to come up with an example of an "even worse and more dangerous failing" of a low RWA skeptic.

D V wrote:

why not just point to different possibly evil inclinations of different groups?

it is better to generalize about human propensities altogether, and include modsec/sech-hum/libeff/rel-trad... as data all, not single out one as "so much more", as if others aren't so much more something in their own way, kind of treating it anthropologically maybe, and find complementary foibles

While I, like most leftist inclined individuals, confess to being a "moral relativist" to some extent, I do hold some values as absolute. Most importantly, I accept the scientific method as the only valid approach to finding truth in everyday life. Evidence matters to me. I can accept that others disagree with my conclusions, so long as they have some reasonable, evidence based way to come to their different conclusions. But I regard the mind set of the high RWA individual, who rejects all evidence that contradicts his belief system, as an unqualified evil.

D V wrote:

the 'scientism' posture of a skeptic, eg, more readily allied to sec-hum/modsec, is demonstrably every bit as dangerous as an authoritarian religionist

Please do demonstate this assertion. I don't believe there is any basis in fact for it whatsoever.